


Wise Choice

by SilverCateyes



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Feels, Minor Spoilers for CA:TWS, Minor spoilers for Thor 2, Mostly Dialogue, Science, Science Bros, Speculation, and old time violations thereof, discussion of medical ethics, my head cannon, pre-slash if you squint real hard, sort of, spoilers for IM3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1665791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverCateyes/pseuds/SilverCateyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of CA:The Winter Soldier, someone finally gets a chance to compare the blood of two different people enhanced by what is essentially the same serum. Bruce has some startling ideas and theories from this comparison, which he shares with Tony.</p><p>Now with edits fixing some glaring mistakes (honestly, has anyone else misspelled 'SHIELD?') and some additions from Tony.</p><p> </p><p>Not betad, so all mistakes are my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wise Choice

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my head cannon about how the serum actually works in the MCU verse, via Bruce and his investigations. It fits somewhere into a larger fic idea, as a side story at the very least, but I honestly couldn't keep it in my head any longer. It just spewed out of me this evening, so I hope you enjoy it. Or at least get some ideas of your own.
> 
> Not betad, so all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Edit 1: Okay, sorry to first time readers, I've fixed the issue the the line spacing so the story is a lot more readable now. 
> 
> Edit 2: I've fixed some typos (SHIELD and Erskine spelled correctly now), and tried to make Tony a more active presence than just the person that Bruce spews his thoughts at.

Bruce sat back and stared at the pictures on the screen. On the left was an old picture, clearly scanned in from some old database or file. The fading sepia tones, the slight shadows from wrinkled paper, and the old style of clothing evident in the subject matter all told the tale. On the right was a much more recent photo of the same person, bright colors and textures making the visual contrast that much more staggering.  
  
Bruce shook his head slowly. No wonder. With this kind of before and after image comparison, no wonder every scientist from the 1940s onward, himself included, had come to the wrong conclusions about Dr. Erskine’s formula.  
  
Behind him, the door slid open with a familiar rush of air. Tony’s labs were wonderful, but there was the fact that Tony had full access to all of them. And tended to use that access whenever he was bored (or had stalled on one of his own projects, or was fighting off sleep, or felt that Bruce needed more socializing, or was hiding from Steve, or was hiding from Rhodes, or was hiding from Pepper). There was no denying the man was brilliant and a breathtaking joy to work on a project with, but that brilliance also meant that the man was occasionally tiring to be around. Tonight, however, Bruce was glad of the company. Discoveries like this one didn’t happen so often that there was no joy in sharing them.  
  
“Bruce, what gives, I’m the one who’s normally pulling mad-scientist-insomniac binges," Tony demanded, striding over to the consoles Bruce was studying. "When you do it people start getting twitchy. Tasha is starting to actually frown at the elevator, that’s how worried she is and...”  
  
Tony’s voice trailed off as he drew close enough to see what was on the screens. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but wasn’t trying to figure this one out what got you into trouble in the first place?”  
  
That brought an involuntary snort of laughter to Bruce’s lips. Of all the things he liked about Tony, his ability to be unfazed by the other guy and all issues surrounding him was still the thing he liked the most. “Well, yeah Tony, but this isn’t quite the same.”  
  
“What? Why?" The other man moved smoothly up beside Bruce, glancing between the displayed pictures and Bruce's face. "You’re staring at those pictures of Steve -- and may I add, I really like the second one, whoever took it is a genius at lighting -- like they’re lovers who’ve just given you the keys to their apartment, car, and fridge after they’ve finished blowing-”  
  
“Tony,” Bruce huffed, “can you maybe, for once, come up with a metaphor that doesn’t involve sex?”  
  
That earned him a grin, a bright flash of teeth in the otherwise dim lab.“Not when you’ve got a large as life and twice as good looking photo of our favorite Captain up there, showing off his muscles. Don’t get your purple stretchy pants in a twist, I just meant you’re looking at them like they’ve given you everything and all the secrets of the universe, you know?” Well, say what you want to about Tony's methods of communication, his observations were usually accurate.  
  
Bruce sighed, and turned back to his screens. “Its not that they’ve given me everything, so much as these two pictures,” a quick gesture to a smaller, skinny form about to be injected with the serum, and a tall, lithe form that was halfway through a devastating return punch to one of the sparring bots Tony had created for the tower's gym, “explain in a nutshell why everyone from the generals to the scientists to you and me got our information about the super-soldier serum wrong.”  
  
Now he had the other man’s full attention, all jokes discarded at the prospect of new, revolutionary information. Tony's eyes were now fixed on the pictures, studying them closely. “Wrong, what wrong? And how are the photos the problem? I didn’t spend whole lot of time looking into the science behind the serum, not my area, but I thought the problems were from the fact that Erskine was kinda justifiably paranoid about the whole thing after his experiences with Germany and Schmidt. He kept most of the formula info in his head, which meant his death kind of shut the whole program down.” As he spoke, Tony's arms moved, drawing lines between the pictures and waving distractedly to indicate past events and his own current curiosity.  
  
Bruce pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Well, yes, his death meant that information was lost, but its like any other scientific problem or theory. You’ll never find a workable solution if you start your reasoning from a flawed position or assumption.”  
  
The billionaire's eyes narrowed, going from him, to the pictures and back again as he grabbed a convenient lab stool, anticipating some serious discussions. “There are any number of assumptions that those photos can inspire. Which particular assumption is the cow-pie in the daisy field?”  
  
Bruce grinned. When Tony was really focused on a problem, he always got so precise and his metaphors got so strange at the same time. “The cow-pie, as you put it, was the assumption that the serum was, at heart, a mutagen.”  
  
That hung in the air for a long moment, Tony’s mechanical engineering mind processing a biological idea, before his eyes widened. “So, not a mutagen, it didn’t-”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Not even-”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Are you-”  
  
“I’ve spent the past two days down here confirming it, yes I’m sure, Tony!”  
  
“All right, chill before Jolly Green trashes your servers and makes you run the tests all over again." Tony leaned back to consider that for a moment, absently adding, "And its been three days, by the way, you’ve lost some time." The two men were quiet for several seconds, before Tony shook himself and turned back to Bruce. "Alright, walk me through this, okay, I said this wasn’t my area. You want me to build you a boom, break the laws of physics, or make a spandex suit both protective and stylish, I gotcha covered, but this isn’t one of my primary areas of awesome, so-”  
  
Bruce cut in before Tony could get fully wound up. “Well, scientists have always had Steve, and only Steve, as a sample of what the serum could do, remember? And because this all happened in the 40s, well before any sort of routine genetic sequencing, all they- we, really- had to work with was his samples from after the serum.”  
  
“Got it, no before and after DNA, okay.” And now Tony was staring at the two pictures just like Bruce had been. “And I see your point about the assumptions from the photos, I mean, the change from skinny Stevie to Spangled Steve is just really-”  
  
“Dramatic, I know,” laughed Bruce, before his face darkened. “So dramatic that we’ve always assumed that it was inherently forced, or unnatural, rather than-”  
  
“Oh no, Science Bro, you are not allowed to beat yourself up for this!" Tony jumped in, spinning to face Bruce. "Let me remind you of our good Captain’s kill-count of heavy punching bags, of his stamina in terms of work out lengths, of his ability to eat like a horse and not get fat, of his inability to get drunk -- though I’m working on that, you’ll love it, I can’t wait -- and of the fact that he survived pulling a Titanic with an iceberg thanks to some sort of natural cryogenics! Plus, I’ve seen what that man can bench press. All of that falls into the category of ‘super-human.’ Neither you, nor the docs back then, can place all the blame for that on the visuals. You had plenty of empirical data to back up the idea that he’d been pushed past human limits, which required a mutation or other drastic change at some point. Are we clear on this? Because I’ll have JARVIS play that speech as many times as we need to in order to get this across, you have been warned.” By the end of this, Tony’s eyes were flashing, his arms were crossed, and the look on his face wasn’t something Bruce had seen there before.  
  
If he’d ever bother to care enough to use that glare in a board meeting, the company wouldn’t be nearly as much trouble as he’s always complaining it is, Bruce thought idly. “I- okay Tony, its clear. I got it.” Tony relaxed slightly, and Bruce added “Honestly, I wasn’t really trying to beat up myself, or even anyone from back then. There was a piece missing from the puzzle that none of us had.”  
  
“Piece of- Who? Who else?” And now Tony’s eyes are flashing for an entirely different reason, speculation and discovery combining to form flares of interest and knowledge.  
  
Bruce had always liked that Tony didn’t need huge amounts of context to come to the correct conclusion. It was one of the things that made him such a wonderful engineer, allowing his designs to take such huge leaps past everything that had come before. “The Winter Soldier. James ‘Bucky’ Barnes.”  
  
That revelation rocked Tony back on stool. None of them had ever really tried to spend time in each others back pockets, or stalk their teammate’s every move, but it was hard to miss that entire fiasco. Just like it had been equally hard to miss the ‘Mandarin’ debacle Tony had been involved with just a few months prior, or Thor’s return, for which the various laws of physics that had decided to go AWOL in celebration.  
  
Whatever distance there may be between the team members, they all made a point of getting all the details from each other after especially dramatic encounters. Tony insisted it was because whether or not he was involved, the press would try to corner him about it and he needed to know these things in order not to mess anything up. Clint and Natasha insisted that SHIELD needed the details (and Bruce still hadn’t really adjusted to the notion that SHIELD didn’t really exist anymore, that was going to require more processing time).  
  
Steve's insistence on information exchange was at least based on the very good point that a threat to one team member was very likely to become a threat to one or all of the other members (if only because when the mess got big enough, the whole team would be called in) and it would be helpful if anyone else likely to deal with a threat or fallout had all the important information in advance.  
  
Bruce himself simply made no bones about the fact that keeping secrets about threats to people he had come to care about was enough to severely annoy him, while on the other hand, having all the information so he could investigate ways to help a situation was a good method of calming him down. Given a choice between dealing with him the other guy or dealing with him as a scientist, everyone, even SHEILD while it still existed, had made a point of keeping him up to date.  
  
Bruce smiled to himself. The threat had never been a serious one, but it seemed Tony’s attitude had rubbed on him, at least in regards to information gathering methods.  
  
Tony was still processing this new revelation. “Fuck, Steve’s already -- I mean, its one thing for his friend to turn up alive and well and the same type of active senior that the Cap is, that’s enough, but then you’ve got the whole ‘he doesn’t remember me’ aspect and the ‘he’s trying to kill me,’ and ‘he’s a really violent douche like this’ things to deal with, but seriously? His best friend got hit with the serum too? What are the freaking odds? And you know he’s going to make this all his fault, he always does, I’ll lay any bet you want that he’s going to use twisted responsibility logic to try and take all the blame.” Tony turned a quick, reproachful look on the picture of the modern day Steve.  
  
Bruce sighed. “I know, that’s part of why I haven’t told him yet. Anyway, the fights that he and Steve got into meant that I could get blood samples from a couple of places -- mostly Natasha’s weapons, actually, she was incredibly clear sighted to preserve them instead of cleaning them off.”  
  
“That’s our favorite ninja-spy-assassin, always planning ahead.” Bruce still wasn't sure exactly how smooth the relationship between Natasha and Tony was, but both were fully willing to acknowledge each other's skills.  
  
“True. But honestly, it makes sense. Between what had been historically credited to the Winter Soldier by various black ops and intelligence communities and what she’d seen the man do herself, assuming some sort of superhuman ability wasn’t illogical. And failing that, being able to get a DNA match for him at all would be valuable,” Bruce admitted. “When she brought a sample to me, all she asked for was a check for the X-gene and a full DNA profile, so that they would have a definitive physical description and DNA on file for the first time. But the similarities between his blood and the samples from Steve were very clear.”  
  
“What kind of -- no, wait, if SHEILD’s gone, who is ‘they’?” Tony demanded.  
  
“Tone of voice suggested her and Clint, actually.” Bruce wasn’t sure who Natasha would work with now, or if she would choose to be a full time Avenger, but he trusted her. In a strange way, she was one of the members of the team he trusted most. Whatever her past or usual behaviors, she had never once lied to him or failed to keep a promise.  
  
“Oh. That’s- that’s fine, actually. So, Steve’s and Da Terminator’s blood were the same under a scope?”  
  
“Not -- not exactly, the same, no. Think of it like comparing an oak tree to an elm or maple tree. They’re both recognizably trees, and they share the same shape and general function, but there’s a lot of little details that don’t quite match.” Bruce quickly pulled up the comparison charts he'd created on a new screen, showing Tony all the little anomalies that were close, but not quite the same.  
  
Tony peered over his shoulder, probably not understanding all the subtleties but clearly seeing the relationship. “Well, you’d expect that, if someone was trying to recreate the serum rather than use the real thing. But, I’ve got access to the whole Project Rebirth file. Even if SHIELD got squirrelly and tried to deny me intel, my dad honestly kept the whole thing in his locked files, the ones I only got access to after- damn." Tony's brow lowered as he considered the possibilities. "After Fury told me about them. You think the SSR or SHIELD tried to-”  
  
“No, actually, nothing like that,” Bruce reassured his friend. God knew he didn’t place a lot of faith in government agencies anymore, and that SHIELD had been deeper in the shadows than most even before the HYDRA reveal, but no. “None of Barnes’s military records were too classified for me, though come to think of it, that might change if the various powers-that-be discover or connect the dots about Winter Soldier. But I was able to chart his whole military career, and cross check it with Steve and some other information sources."  
  
Tony's face relaxed as he was distracted from his dark speculations "Yeah, so? How does that tell you that SHIELD, or SSR for that matter, had nothing to do with this?"  
  
"During the time that Project Rebirth was active, Barnes was stationed in Europe. No contact there," Bruce began.  
  
“After Erskine’s death, but before Steve was an active combatant, the SSR unit was re-tasked to focus on taking down HYDRA. Its main base was stationed in the same area as Barnes’s assigned unit, but all science efforts were turned to weaponry and reverse engineering. And even if that was a cover-” Bruce hastily added, seeing Tony about to interrupt, “I’ve managed to confirm from details like his pay records, and daily accounts and reports, that Barnes was on normal duty around various camps. He wasn't assigned to any ‘Special’ or ‘Guard’ or ‘Liaison’ duties that might be used as an excuse for constant contact with scientists or a special program." Tony was listening closely, nodding his understanding.  
  
“After Steve became active against HYDRA," Bruce continued, "I could confirm straight from him that Bucky was never away from the unit for any length of time until his supposed death. And honestly, given Steve’s description of the event, both now and in the reports from then, I have to believe that Bucky only survived because he’d already been exposed to this other version of the serum. I’ve looked at the satellite imagery for the place his fell, Tony. Even today, that is a lethal drop to a normal human, never mind the icy river and potential hypothermia that was at the bottom of that gorge.”  
  
Tony blinked suddenly, dots clearly connecting in his mind. “I’m not willing to ask either of these guys to jump in a tub of ice water or anything, but we need to get something going to look into the affects of the serum and temperature, because the coincidences otherwise are just too much. Imagine the jealousy on all the ‘wake-me-up-for-the-future’ nuts faces if we make cryogenics possible first.”  
  
“I’ll leave that up to you,” Bruce drawled. “So the only time left that Barnes could have been exposed-”  
  
“Yeah, only point in time he’s away from ‘normal’ long enough was that prison Steve pulled him out of,” Tony nodded. “I remember once, we’d wandered onto the topic of animal rights and testing -- I think he’d heard Pepper on a rant about which make-ups she was willing to buy, actually -- and he said that the whole idea gave him the creeps because it was too similar the kind of lab he’d pulled Bucky out of.  
  
"And," Tony spun to pull up his own historical records and throw them up on the holo projectors, scanning through them. "Yeah, that was a HYDRA base, not Nazi or German. Any scientists working on super-soldier serum would have had access to Schmidt and his biochemistry. Given the way Project Rebirth ended, we know that Schmidt was closely following any progress that Erskine made, and likely had access to at least some of the data on Steve. That means his scientists would have had a leg up on any of the Allies working of the project." Tony's fingers were flying through the air, pulling up everything from historical news articles to Army intelligence reports as he followed the thought. "So, solid theory so far. What next?”  
  
“Now it gets complicated, with more speculation than any good scientist should really throw in,” Bruce sighed.  
  
“Oh, come on Science Bro, remember the alien portal? Loki’s epic fuckery? Thor's return, which coincided on gravity going haywire? Freakin’ Richards, and what he gets up to? My own bouts with exploding people? We live in a messy world, filled with speculative sciences. Speculate away.” Tony’s outspread arms eloquently conveyed the extent of the mess, as far as he was concerned, as well as his willingness to accept Bruce’s own contribution to the pile. Bruce gave in.  
  
“Okay, the thing that caught my attention was that there wasn’t anything dramatic that happened to Barnes. No stories about him doing anything impossible, no sudden out-growing of his uniforms, nothing. In fact, according to Steve, he spent his time directly after the prison camp mostly sleeping. This isn’t a surprise, the man was recovering from obvious trauma, but it was very different from what Steve experienced.”  
  
“I’ll say,” Tony muttered. “I've read SSR's report, and I don't think even Coulson could have gushed more than whoever wrote it. According to them, a skinny Steve went into the machine, and a muscled Steve came charging out, immediately ready to chase down a spy.”  
  
“I think you hit the nail on the had, honestly,” Bruce sighed. “That machine. We’ve got numerous accounts from witnesses to the event that there was glowing and something called ‘Vita-rays,’ but we’ve never really understood their function, or even the function of the machine. That’s what led me to Gamma Radiation in the first place, as its the most mutagenic type of radiation.” The two men shared a look that was part grimace, part commiseration, and part understanding. “But given the differences in the stories here, I’m willing to bet that the Vita-rays were actually some sort of energy or power source, something to simultaneously make the serum work as fast as possible and somehow ‘charge up’ the recipient to some sort of optimum level-"  
  
"Charge up? What do you mean?" Tony had risen off his stool, and was pacing back and forth between the holo projections, burning off physical energy as his mind tracked all the threads Bruce was laying out.  
  
"I mean that, when I went over the reports, that chase sequence was the single most sustained, and greatest, burst of physical activity that Steve ever demonstrated," Bruce elaborated. "He's showed super strength and endurance ever since, but that was the only time that the official reports read, as you say, like newspaper hyperbole. Leaping from the tops of cars, while they were moving. Chasing down cars on foot. Swimming to catch up with a submarine, and being able to build up enough momentum to punch through glass, while underwater." Bruce waved a hand in mild frustration. Between the problems inherent in judging what a person with super human abilities could do, and the fuzziness of the the historical data sources, there was just too much vagueness in this part of his ideas. "I think Steve might be capable of all that now, but as part of a focused and planned set of actions. Steve then just did it, not even knowing he could or couldn't, which implies-"  
  
But Tony was nodding, following the spoken and unspoken thoughts easily. "Which implies that he was feeling unstoppable, or overpowered, at the time." He quickly pulled up one sheet of crabbed writing, expanding it in front of him. "Says here that the medical teams treated his feet for glass cuts after they got him back. You gotta be ramped up on something to run over broken glass and keep going. Adrenaline or the rays, something else was affecting him. Which means, what, for Barnes and your argument?"  
  
"Which means that, without that energy, the changes in Barnes weren’t nearly as fast or as dramatic. It took time for the serum to gather enough energy to affect the body, and even longer for the body in question to become as ‘charged up’ as Steve.”  
  
“What changes?” Tony asked, eyes intent. He was following the logic so far, but he wanted all the facts, all the evidence that Bruce had before he made a decision.  
  
“Barnes’ height was listed on his Army papers as 6 feet even. Tony, I’ve gone over and over what footage we could find of Steve’s encounters with the man, and all my calculations put him somewhere between 6”3 and 6”4. Not a huge difference, but not a natural one, given his age when he enlisted. He’s obviously more muscular than in what historical pictures of him I could find, and being able to go toe-to-toe with Steve means his strength is definitely enhanced.  
  
"Steve reported the man recovering his memory as well, multiple times." Here Bruce sent a solemn look over to his discussion partner. "Tony, if he’s healing brain damage from whatever method has been used to control him, that’s not normal. Human brains are resilient, but brain damage doesn’t heal in the way that muscle or bones do. The body works around the damaged ares if it can, or builds new neural pathways, but it can’t repair damaged brain matter. So if Barnes is doing that, that is a strong indication of the type of supernatural healing factor that we’ve seen only from Steve and a few of the X-men. Never mind what the man must have survived to be still here and in good shape. There is not one method of preservation, even in the speculative journals, that doesn’t also entail huge risks and various kinds of damage.”  
  
“All right, I agree that all signs say he’s been super-soldier serum-ed.” Bruce blinked at Tony for that one. That was a little too much alliteration for this time of night. “But bring this back around for me. How does this connect to Steve, and your ‘not a mutagen’ realization?”  
  
“Tony,” Bruce shook his head, “one of the biggest mysteries of that serum is how Erskine controlled the changes. How did he say, ‘this tall, and no taller?’ Or ‘this strong, this fast,’ or any of the rest of it? If there was a designated set of changes I’d expect Barnes to either match Steve exactly -- and he doesn’t, I looked for that in the footage, too -- or be as much taller than his previous self as Steve was, rather than a few inches. And imagine how much of a nightmare the man would have been to fight if he’d been as much stronger than his pre-serum self as Steve was.”  
  
“Could we chalk it up to the differences between the evil guy’s serum and ours?” Tony was settling back onto the lab stool, always willing to play devil’s advocate.  
  
“No, the different levels of changes with such similar final results and similar traces in the blood means its not that simple. Fundamentally, the serum must be doing the same thing to both of them.” Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Three days, Tony had said? It was starting to catch up to him.  
  
“Which means that the difference almost has to be in the subjects themselves,” Tony mused. “We know they grew up together, which cuts out most environmental causes. That pretty much leaves us with DNA. You’re telling me that Steve’s genes just, I don’t know, liked the serum better? Were a better fit?”  
  
“No, Tony,” Bruce smiled sadly. “I think that Dr. Erskine was right when he said that his serum was intended to make the subject into an ideal person. But I think that he meant it not as a way to create one perfect template that everyone would match. I think he meant that his serum would bring everyone injected with it up to their own perfect, ideal genetic version of themselves. It doesn’t change your DNA, Tony -- it doesn’t cause any mutations. It’s a restorative. That serum pushes your body to the peak of what your DNA says it should be.”  
  
Tony, for once in a great long while, was silent, staring at the pictures in front of him. The two Steves, the two pictures that were so different that they had fooled over three generations of scientists chasing this secret. “But then,” he muttered at last “how- what happened?” his gesture towards the older, frayed picture was an odd mix of helplessness and anger, confusion and disbelief, a mix almost never seen on the genius’s face.  
  
“I looked into it, Tony." Bruce smiled again, or tried to. It probably fell somewhere between 'sad' and 'grimace.' "I went and looked for that long list of health problems that kept Steve out of the Army at first. Asthma from growing up in a smoggy city, scarlet and rheumatic fever, heart problems because of those, malnutrition from growing up during the Depression, no few broken bones and injuries from fights, all of which probably damaged his growth plates -- nothing on that list was genetic, Tony. Nothing.” And wasn’t that a humbling realization, thinking about what that list of words and conditions meant for the life and body of the man he knew as Steven Rodgers.  
  
“But- seriously? That- that can’t be all, Bruce. Can it?” Tony looked as bewildered as Bruce felt, when he’d first realized.  
  
“There is one other possibility, Tony,” he said gently. “It isn’t a pretty one. It doesn’t really reflect well on the medical profession, or on human ethics.”  
  
Tony’s gaze is turning dark and stormy, and honestly, when this idea had occurred to Bruce, he’d been lucky that he’d been too tired to be really angry, and too inured to the imperfections of the medical and research communities as a whole. Other wise the other guy might have made an appearance after all.  
  
“Tony, do you know when the first serious, international medical ethics laws and guidelines were laid down? Or why they were developed in the first place?”  
  
“Um, a little bit, yeah. Mostly slept through history when I didn’t skip it, but this was actually part of Dad’s stories, from when he was helping to come up with ways to prove war crimes and gather evidence. Things like the Nuremberg code, and ideas like informed consent, they were put in place after the WWII, in response to a lot of the human testing and experimentation that had been done by the Nazis without the knowledge or agreement of the testees.”  
  
Bruce’s sad smile made another appearance. “Sad to say, but the Nazi’s weren’t the only people who indulged in human experimentation. Just look at Erskine’s work! It would probably get rejected today on ethics grounds alone. The only reason people are still chasing it is there is clear, undeniable, and impressive proof that it worked once. But that, and what the Nazis did, was only more extreme that most. It wasn’t all that uncommon, historically speaking.”  
  
Now Tony’s face was downright thunderous. “Explain.”  
  
“A medical procedure needs to be performed, practiced, perfected, Tony. These days we’ve got clinical trials and informed consent and forms and regulations. Before? There was none of that. More than one surgeon practiced a surgery, or a treatment, or a medication, on a patient what didn’t really know what they were agreeing to, or who hadn’t even been asked. If you do the research, there are some real horror stories from the poor wards or the charity houses from way back when, about the potential fates of patients who weren’t lucky, or doctors who volunteered their time in order to find people helpless enough, desperate enough, or ignorant enough to agree to their new procedures. Now we’ve got a small, poor, skinny kid, with a whole host of ailments. What doctors could have decided to try something? What damage might they have done? I mean, we’re still discovering what does and doesn’t have an affect on a kid’s body as it grows, so I’ve got to assume that the attending physicians weren’t always what the medications might do, either.  
  
Tony had left thunderous behind and was well into murderous. “Okay, now I’m kind of wishing I could build a time machine and drag those bastards forward for a nice trial, after a good hard punch. One powered by a repulsor.”  
  
“You come up with a plan for that that doesn’t involve a universe ending paradox, and I’ll help,” Bruce offered. “Remember, though, it’s honestly just a possibility. I don’t have any proof.”  
  
“No,” Tony gritted out, shaking his head. “No, I think you’re at least partially right. You’ve never seen him in medical before, Bruce. I have. I don’t think he’d be that edgy and nervous in there without a damn good reason.”  
  
Bruce sighed. “Sometimes I hate people.”  
  
Tony makes a small noise of agreement, before letting a long moment of silence fall over the pair of them.  
  
Before the silence got too heavy, Bruce spoke up again. “My only other speculations are about Erskine’s insistence that the serum amplified the character of the subject. I think that that aspect of the thing might be part of why Steve’s procedure was held in that metal- thing-”  
  
“You mean that space-pod-coffin-egg?” Tony chuckled, coming a bit out of his black mood.  
  
Bruce let himself be amused, let Tony’s humor pull his own mood up. “Yes. That. As a guess, and this is even more off the wall than my others, I think that some aspect of brain wave amplification might have been in play there. What it means that Barnes didn’t get this, I’m not sure. I don’t even know if it matters. I just think that some aspect of it is in this mess somewhere.”  
  
“Alright,” Tony sighed. “My father might have built the thing, but honestly, he was as tight lipped as Erskine about it. It was the only thing I ever remember him having arguments with the military about. There were generals that wanted his help to rebuild Project Rebirth, and he turned them down flat. Said he’d make them weapons, but making soldiers was their job, not his. Don’t know if it was because of whatever morals he might have, or because he didn’t want anyone to try and take Steve’s place.”  
  
Bruce felt another involuntary snort escape his mouth. “I think, whether I’m right or not about the serum -- and I assure you, I’m planning to keep my theories close for the foreseeable future -- I’ve managed to prove that, however intelligent Dr. Erskine was, that intelligence in the creation of the serum was matched by an equally powerful amount of wisdom in his choice of who to use it on.”  
  
Tony looked at the pictures of Steve, thought of the actions and character that made up the man he knew as Steve Rodgers and Captain America, and nodded.


End file.
